Bill Gates and

Petals Around the Rose

It was June 1977, the very early days of the microcomputer industry. The founders of
Microsoft, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, were amongst those heading home to Albuquerque from
the National Computer Conference in Dallas. In the September/October 1977 edition of
"Personal Computing" magazine, Henry Gilroy provided the following report on the
introduction of the Petals Around the Rose brain teaser to his fellow travelers on the
return journey.

Heading back to Albuquerque on a hot, humid Texas evening, the party from Personal
Computing fell in with a gang from Microsoft. A couple of MITs folks were also in the crowd.
Luckily, an ideal distraction for computer types was available.

The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose, and that name is significant. Newcomers to
the game can be told that much. They can also be told that every answer is zero or an even
number. They can also be told the answer for every throw of the dice that are used in the
game. And that's all the information they get.

The person who has the dice and knows the game, rolls five dice and remarks almost
instantly on the answer. For example: in Roll #1 the answer is two.

Roll #1.

"The answer is what?" says the new player.

"Two."

"On that roll?"

"Yes."

"Would it still be two if I moved the dice without turning any of them over, just rearranging
the pattern?"

"I can tell you only three things: the name of the game, the fact that the answer is always
even, and the answer for any particular throw. In this case the answer is two."

"So that's how it is. What am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to tell me the answer before I tell you. I'll give you all the time you want,
but don't tell me your theory, just the answer. If you figure it out, you don't want to give the
idea away to these other jokers around you. Make them work for the answers, too. If you get
the answer right on six successive rolls, I'll take that as prima facie evidence that you
understand the game."

"OK, roll again."

Roll #2.

"I give up. What's the answer?"

"The answer is eight."

"Roll again."

Roll #3.
The answer is fourteen.

Roll #4.
The answer is zero.

Roll #5.
The answer is four.

Roll #6.
The answer is four again.

By this time — it's a warm night at the Dallas Airport — half a dozen people, friends and
strangers, are sitting on the floor around the Potentate of the Rose, snorting and guffawing
in disgust while guessing consistently wrong on the answers. Security types stop occasionally
to give steely glances at the proceedings, and waiting strangers stop reading to listen to the
discussion. Some blush at the language.

Roll #7.
The answer is two.
Some people, like Personal Computing's Marketing Coordinator, Louise, catch on in half a
dozen rolls, shrugging the whole thing off as trivial. Mark James, the Seer of Comex at USC
(who gave us the game in the first place), observes that many brilliant, learned folk who visit
their establishment and subject themselves to this, depart hours later without the answer.
Many draw sketches of the throws and carry the sketches off to laboratories for study among
the boiling cauldrons and croaking ravens. Weeks later, they may call Comex with proposed
answers based on elaborate (and expensive) computer analyses of the game. The answers
proposed are more often wrong than right. Petals Around the Rose may be almost as great a
drag on the national economy as Star Trek.

Roll #8.
The answer is ten.

Roll #9.
The answer is six.

"Six? It can't be!"

Roll #10.
The answer is twelve.

"Well, that shoots my last three algorithms! Gimme a piece of paper so I can work on this.
Let me list everything. The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose?"

"Right, and the name is significant."

"OK, and the answer is always even."

"Correct."

"Can I roll the dice myself or do you have to do it?"

"Oh, you're welcome to roll them."

Roll #11.

"Is the answer eight?"

"No, it's two."

"Oh hell!"

"No, that's the answer in another game."

"Well, it can't be very complicated or you wouldn't be able to spit out the numbers so fast.
You spend ten minutes trying to figure out the tip and count your change at breakfast."

"That's me, all right, but I am mystically suited to this game of Petals Around the Rose.
Every man has some talent, and this is mine."

Roll #12.
The answer is sixteen.

"Wait, we haven't gone that high before. I thought the upper limit was 12."

"No, we had a fourteen before."

"Oh yeah, How high can it go?"

"I can tell you three things..."

"Aw, shut up and roll!"

Roll #13.
The answer is eight.

Steve Wood caught on while we were still in the waiting area at the airport, but the others
stayed puzzled until after we got on the plane. After takeoff, it was possible to throw the dice
on a fold-down table while leaning over the back of a seat. Seven or so people watched
without too much trouble. Rich Weiland caught on after another half hour. Paul Allen's neck
got stiff fairly soon and he gave up to read his book. Mark McDonald and Bill Gates hung on
grimly.

Funny thing about Bill, he began to get answers right, but not consistently. He admitted that
he was remembering throws he'd seen before, along with the answers, but had no plausible
theory to account for answers. Remembering?

"Oh, sure," said the rememberer. "Like this throw...

Roll #14.
The answer is six.
... it's just like a roll we saw earlier (Roll #9), except that the six this time was a two last
time. I don't know why the answer is the same, but it is."

The rotten kid must have had two dozen rolls, with answers, committed to memory by the
time this discussion came up. ("Kid," because he ordered a Shirley Temple at lunch one day
just a few months ago, and drank it before the awestricken eyes of his tablemates, some of
whom realised that they were at least twice Bill's age. He had taken leave of his
undergraduate courses at Harvard to lead this little company, Microsoft, which is creating
BASIC and FORTRAN, etc... interpreters and compilers for various microcomputers. No
applications software in their product line yet, just system packages that are already making
them famous and may at length make them rich. *Sigh.*)

"I think I'd better use a piece of paper," said Bill, who was by this time the only active player
who had still failed to divine the secret.

"Aha," said he after about an hour and a half of this foolishness. "The answer is four on this
roll."

Roll #15.

"Yes."

Roll #16.

"And the answer to this is ten."

He was right again, and he rattled off the next dozen answers without a quiver, declaring
that he wasn't just remembering history now but knew what was going on. Like the others
he didn't feel cheated by the game, but was satisfied that his effort paid off.

Actually when you go through this at Comex and finally get the answer, a committee forces
you to kneel in the middle of the floor so you can be sworn in as a member of the Fraternity
of Petals Around the Rose while somebody taps you on the shoulders with a piece of wood.
(Certain people tend to be kissed during the process. I was struck smartly with a blackboard
pointer.) Comex even hands out a nice printed card. We didn't try all this on the airplane.

The game does work well with real dice. Comex reports that one major convention was
largely disrupted when they arranged for the gift shop at the hotel to stock a large supply of
dice, then introduced Petals Around the Rose to many conference attendees. "It was
amazing," says Mark, "distinguished looking ladies and gentlemen in neat business clothes
could be seen crawling on their hands and knees in little working groups all over the hotel.
While speakers were saying important things on lecture platforms, the rattle of dice and
mutterings about answers almost drowned them out from all over the dimly lit halls. We
don't like to do this too often. Makes enemies."

Even the Microsoft guys agreed that Petals Around the Rose offers a good excuse for doing a
bit of applications software. Indeed, Bill scratched out a program for the game on a napkin
and passed it over the seat so that it could see daylight in Personal Computing.

We won't, of course, because it gives away the game. Figure it out and write the program
yourself.

However, we'll give you one line of Bill's program as it is written in pencil on the napkin
(which is safe in our vault for evidence). Bill's written program makes us feel much better
about dealing with a smart guy who can not only program but can remember all those
throws of the dice. Things do even out. The line reads:

PRINT "THE NAME OF THE GAME IS PEDAL AROUND THE ROSES"

No wonder he was having trouble.